A time capsule of the greatest financial mania in the history of mankind, told in real-time by regular folks and patriots. May future generations better understand the madness of crowds, and how power and money corrupt.

26 comments:

I assume this includes vacation/2nd homes? If that's the case then I guess the problem is the recent spike in vacancy that is housing stock for sale and vacant w/o an intent to leave it vacant as a 2nd/vacation home.

I would have thought that with a huge housing crash with millions of additional homes vacant, you'd be able to see a significant uptrend in the last year but not a significant uptrend in previous years but that's not what I see. What I see says there's nothing unusual right now about the number of houses vacant because it continues the same trend in place for basically the last 42 years according to the graph. Hmmm ... could the whole housing bubble crash thing be just propaganda from HousingPANIC?? Hmmmmmm?

The talk of the parties next year will be what a great deal one is getting on a rental property. No debt, no taxes, no insurance, and no repairs. Big mcmansions renting for unbeatable prices.

Just one low monthly rent payment that takes the pressure off the ever inflating food, gas and living expenses. Not to mention more vacations!!!

Plus an added benefit of being able to walk away and rent another home if yours is destroyed by one of the natural disasters which continue to pummel our great nation. And as we all can see natural disasters are coming at an increasing rate.

This is the new America where home ownership is not as important as cash in the bank and a lifestyle of vacations and sporting events.

DC Williams said... I would have thought that with a huge housing crash with millions of additional homes vacant, you'd be able to see a significant uptrend in the last year but not a significant uptrend in previous years but that's not what I see. What I see says there's nothing unusual right now about the number of houses vacant because it continues the same trend in place for basically the last 42 years according to the graph---------------------------- I think if you look at that same graph in one to two years, you will see a big spike going up, up, up, just like the prices/sales are going down, down, down in the other graphs we have seen. This is only the first of the big reset months (50-55 billion in Oct as compared to 2 billion per month average up till now.) It gets really interesting from here on in. 5-15% default rate on 2 billion/month sub prime has got things rocking, wait until that 110 billion reset hits in Mar 08! It’s going to be 9.999 on the Richter scale!

The best side effect of this will be the collapse of funds local govt. will experience as prices crash and with them will the tax rolls. Less money for corrupt politicians, failing schools, BS projects the city dreams up each year, etc....

What I don't get is that all these experts say that houses need to come down in prices to start selling again. Sure, home builders can do that... no problem. New homes, that is....

But, Joe Homeowner, has a 2nd mortgage or a home equity line of credit that is maxed. And possibly a 3rd position! So he owes more than the house is worth or can sell for. Or maybe he bought at the peak, last year.

The graph, I believe, muddles the water more than it clears them - among the vacant homes are vacation homes etc. Helpful would be a graph with the number of empty homes for sale or after foreclosure that have to be sold at some time. The number would be less, but the spike no less impressive.

I'm a numbers guy and the first thing I do is look at graphs and say "does that make sense?".

Look at 1990. 12.5 MM vacant houses? Let's say the average house has 2.5 occupants. That's 31,250,000 people who either abandoned their houses or the houses were not purchased. The census bureau says in 1990 the US population was 248,700,000 - that's 1 vacant house for every 20 people, or 1 vacant house for every 8 families (2.5 people per house). HMMMM

Look at the current numbers from the graph: 18MM vacan houses = 45,000,000 people displaced, on a population of 301,100,000, or one empty house for every 17 people or every 7 families?

Excuse me but .. duh!Yeah! That's pretty obvious. My point was, this graph doesn't show anything different now than has been for the last 40 years or so. That is, the number of vacant homes is where it would have been predicted to be way BEFORE the housing crash was a twinkle in Keith's eye. I.e, there has been a growing glut of vacancies for 40 years and nothing is special about now in terms of what the graph shows.

Still ... I can't help but think that the sloped line since 1960-ish will get even more steep as a result of this historic housing crash and at some point, the graph will illustrate a great difference.

Yes, the trend is steadily upwards. However, look at the data from 2006 on. That's roughly 2MM homes in not quite 2 years. That's what's shocking. Yes, more people have vacation homes, but when housing vacancies, but you need to look at this chart and then take into account foreclosure rates which are also increasing with hockey stick trajectories.

There are roughly 4.5MM homes listed for sale. With two million homes being vacated since the beginning of '06, it supports what I've been seeing in terms of empty homes in the MLS.

This chart is useless unless you bother to tell us exactly what a "vacant house" is.

Is a vacation home counted as a vacant house? What's the threshold above which a house becomes vacant? Does it have to be completely unoccupied? For how long? If I spend one week a year in a second home, is it vacant?

Did this study count abandoned homes? Some cities in the rust belt have lots of them (Youngstown OH for example) but they're not necessarily in any condition to be sold or occupied and therefore cannot be counted as inventory.

Do you see my point? It's like me telling you I'm rich because I have a container filled with 1,000,000 coins. They could be pennies, they could be some worthless currency from some debt ridden third world country (well Ron Paul supporters might argue that's the definition of the American penny) or they could be solid gold coins.

When I read the disclaimer about what classifies as a vacant home, I think this may be high or deceptive. My parents own 4 "homes", which is actually 1 home and 3 vacation homes (MT, MN, and FL). They don't rent them, and they are all year round units, so those could be included too. They don't plan on selling them any time soon because they are just fine financially.

I guess maybe if taxes increased to horrible levels, they might get to the point of letting one go, but they are kind of retired now and really enjoy going to each place depending on the weather. I don't think there are a lot of boomers in this position, but the ones that did save or were workaholics like my dad and saved their money, they could have a condo down south. Especially I could see a boomer getting one at a bargain price right now at an auction or in the future.

" But, Joe Homeowner, has a 2nd mortgage or a home equity line of credit that is maxed. And possibly a 3rd position! So he owes more than the house is worth or can sell for. Or maybe he bought at the peak, last year.

So, he can't sell for any less."

Of course he can and he will if he wants to sell his house. If he thinks he "cannot" sell for less he will not sell his house. It's that simple.

There is nothing sacred here, despite King George II pronouncements about an "ownership society". You pays your money and you takes your chances. Sometimes you make money, sometimes you lose money. Nobody is guaranteeing you anything. Ever.

"The release showed that the homeownership rate for the third quarter was 68.2% -- a 0.8% drop from the third quarter of 2006 when the ownership rate was 69%. The bureau calculates the homeownership rate by dividing the number of owner occupied housing units (75.2 million) by the total number of occupied units (110.3 million). The total number of housing units in the U.S. is 128.2 million as of the third quarter of this year – leaving nearly 20 million units vacant or rented."